Use of sport to promote potentially harmful products is a long-established practice that appears effective in enhancing awareness, recall, purchase intention and consumption. For example, exposure to tobacco advertising at sporting events has been linked to increased awareness, experimentation and use of tobacco products (Ledwith, 1984; López et al., 2004; Pierce et al., 1998; Sparks, 1999; Vaidya, Naik, & Vaidya, 1996). An Australian review concluded that the synergistic relationship between alcohol and sport is a key contributor to alcohol-related harm (Jones, 2010).

However, assessing the impact of advertising is notoriously difficult. Debates continue as to whether advertising increases overall consumption or affects only market share. It is difficult to reliably measure advertising exposure, identify causal pathways, and account for other influential factors on consumption (Binde, 2014; Nelson, 2010; 2011). These limitations also apply to research examining the impacts of gambling advertising.